And The Other Half
by WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: When Max looked Caroline in the eye and told her she was the only person in the world that Max wasn't sick of, she was telling the truth.


**My intention for this study break was to update one of my WIPs, but this came out instead, since I hadn't written for this show since the first season and since I just got a very nice review on one of my previous oneshots. So here it is, another little introspective piece from Max's point of view that takes place during or shortly after "And The Kickstarter."**

**I don't own anything.**

When Max said that Caroline was the only person in the world that she wasn't sick of, she was telling the truth, and when it came to Max Black, the truth wasn't something that came out that often. Lying was her defense mechanism. She made up or elaborated on uncomfortable details about her past to come across as tough or experienced or someone who one shouldn't get close to, because getting close to someone made you a part of something.

And until she met Caroline, she'd firmly believed that she wasn't ever meant to be a part of something. Being a piece of a larger whole meant give and take, it meant believing in someone, and it meant someone believing in you. Max had never been comfortable with that kind of relationship, and it showed. She had no friends, and it was partly her fault because she pushed people away, and partly the fault of her upbringing, when no one stayed around and when the few people she'd reluctantly let in thought that 'giving and receiving' meant that Max gave and they received. Everyone had their dreams, and everyone was only concerned with how Max could be the stepping stone to those dreams. That was the way it was when she was growing up. That was the way it was when she had tried to go to college. Based on that evidence, Max had assumed that it was the way of the world.

And then Caroline Channing came prancing into her life, with her loud voice and over articulate way of speaking and her ability to be cheerful beyond reason only to fall into a terrible depression just as she was managing to convince Max that maybe things weren't as bad as the brunette had painted them to be. Her willingness to prove herself capable of adjusting to any situation contradicted with her need for pants that cost more than a thousand dollars. Max never knew if a setback was going to set Caroline afire with determination to improve or leave Max with the responsibility of giving a pep talk.

But Max found herself caring anyway. Caroline wasn't a family member or a potential boyfriend or someone who society deemed required to be close to. Max had offered Caroline a place to stay because the woman was lost, but both of them were realizing that Caroline was still there because she'd found – or rather, stumbled across – something greater than her need to make it on her own. It was something small, but something that they both recognized, even if they went about their days not acknowledging it.

Max began to realize their role in each other's lives when Caroline and Andy's relationship shorted out due to Max being the only person Caroline was envisioning being in touch with long term. Her vision of the future didn't include her love life, it didn't include her making it on her own, it didn't include her being front and center. Caroline didn't see any future beyond Max's Homemade Cupcakes. She didn't fantasize about breaking away and being thrust into the spotlight and succeeding whether Max was there or not.

Caroline Channing was going to succeed with Max Black, or she wasn't going to succeed at all.

Max was wanted – Max was needed – for the first time in her life. It scared her, because it meant that she'd let Caroline in, it meant that she had done exactly what she'd told Caroline not to do when they'd first met and gotten attached, and it meant that the two of them had each seen something in each other that they had grown to be unable to do without.

Max supposed she was too close to the puzzle to understand what it was about her that had attracted Caroline, but she was so grateful that something about her made the blonde woman want to stay. She supposed, with her track record of being left behind and Caroline being abandoned by her friends once she was no longer wealthy, that they were both the first real thing the other one had ever had.

People in love spoke of their romantic partner as their other half. Max was beginning to realize that your other half didn't have to be a husband or a girlfriend, but anyone that you found that knew your flaws and still loved you, that could do things that only didn't annoy you because it was _them_, and who put their relationship with you over any other potential success. And for her, that person was Caroline Channing.

So when Max looked across the room at Caroline and said "you are the only person in the entire world I am not sick of," she was telling the truth. She didn't need to put up her defenses and lie. She didn't need to push Caroline away by making her uncomfortable. She didn't need to try and prevent herself from becoming a part of something.

She couldn't try to stop herself from becoming something she already was. Max Black had somehow become half of a whole.


End file.
